


it was so easy and the words so sweet

by metonymy



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-01
Updated: 2013-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-03 23:06:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ariadne may never have gone into a shared dream before, but that's not going to stop her from leaping before she looks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	it was so easy and the words so sweet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nessismore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessismore/gifts).
  * Inspired by [forgetting the words to your favorite song](https://archiveofourown.org/works/616918) by [metonymy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/metonymy/pseuds/metonymy). 



> Linked to the story "[forgetting the words to your favorite song](http://archiveofourown.org/works/616918)", an extension of part 5 - the section headed with "28 | 34." Happy birthday, V.

Ariadne loves her life, she really does. She lives in Paris, one of the greatest cities on earth, and has a career that's starting to really take off after years of dues-paying and stifled creativity, and she has friends who are always up for a round of drinks and no shortage of romantic attention, even if nothing's really panned out recently. Maybe her mother's making noises about settling down and coming back to the States, but as Ariadne stares down the barrel of thirty life seems pretty great.

Miles's retirement party is a good time; it's a reunion of sorts, seeing fellow students and former coworkers from her internships and catching up with everyone over food and wine. When she finds herself standing near a quiet stranger, catching her breath for a moment, it's easy to strike up a conversation with him. There's something about his face as he keeps an eye on Miles's grandchildren and the small smile that appears like the sun burning through mist that makes it easy for him to tell him more than she anticipated, babbling a little about her beloved mentor and how important Miles has been through her life. He doesn't seem like an architect, and she wonders if he was part of that experimental scientific consulting Miles mentioned in passing. Something about virtual reality and mental construction of space, or something; she never got the whole story there, but it always sounded fascinating.

She certainly doesn't expect to have this stranger - Arthur - offer to show her exactly what it was that Miles never told her. And Ariadne's never been good at looking before she leaps, so of course she goes with him when he offers.

When he brings her to a hotel, she starts to have second thoughts. Third thoughts kick in when he pulls out the shiny briefcase and opens it up to display a complicated device with pumps and a clock and slots for little glass vials. But he explains what all the parts are as he does, how something called somnacin will be distributed intravenously, and that's when she stops him.

"Drugs? I thought this was virtual reality stuff. Computers."

Arthur gives her a long, level look, that makes her both a little frightened and aroused at the same time. "It's for sharing dreams."

Ariadne stares at him, she can't help it, and he reaches over the bed to where her hand is resting on the duvet and covers her fingers with his. "You don't have to do this if you don't want to."

"I do," she says, because Ariadne has never backed away from something just because it was scary or confusing and she's certainly not going to start now, and there's something about his earnest gaze and the brush of his hand against hers that has her feeling like every nerve ending is sparkling like she's been doused in champagne, and she has to see what the hell this passive-PASIV-thing does anyway. Lying down on the bed next to him is chaste-but-not with the briefcase between them, and she pushes her hair away from her neck and watches him reach over and

They're walking down a street in a neighborhood she's unfamiliar with, Arthur's suit crisp in the warm summer air. Ariadne doesn't remember agreeing to go out on a second date with him; she isn't really sure that what they had could be termed a first date, really, especially when it ended with - she stops, and the air seems to shudder around her. Arthur turns and puts a hand on her arm.

"It's okay," he says, his eyes crinkling a little at the corners. "Usually dreamers don't remember the start of the dream or the transition from being awake. An effect of the somnacin."

"We're dreaming. We're dreaming right now and we're dreaming the same thing?" she asks, looking around and trying to stay calm. "Whose head are we in?"

Arthur gives her a lopsided smile, a dimple flashing out from one cheek. "It doesn't precisely work that way. But this is my dream. Those people around us are projections of your subconscious mind. You might recognize some of them." And he's right; her butcher is sharing a table at the cafe with her third-grade teacher, and an old college friend is studying the books on the sale rack outside a bookstore. It looks like a cross between the gentrified parts of Brooklyn and some of the ritzier streets in Paris, though it's oddly quiet. Ariadne's not sure if that's her awareness of the dream or something he's doing on purpose.

"How much control do you have over the dream?" she asks, sliding past him and taking a few more steps.

"Technically? The dreamer can build anything they can imagine. But of course some dreamers are more powerful than others," he says. But she's not listening past that confirmation that this works like any dream, that they can build _anything,_ and as soon as she starts to wonder and think and focus one of the stately buildings starts to melt and flow and stretch until its facade looks like something Gaudí might have thought up while watching a waterfall. The balconies begin to grow upwards, vines reaching into the sky, curving up and over onto the roof in cascading tendrils of wrought iron.

There's that same warm weight on her shoulder, and Ariadne glances up to see Arthur staring ahead at the building she's just changed. He's not looking at her, so she can get a good look at the expression of mingled surprise and admiration and the start of a smile.

"Are you sure you've never done this before?" he asks, when he catches her watching him. He drops his hand from her shoulder. Ariadne grins.

"No, but I'm a fast learner," she says, taking his hand. She pulls him around the corner and the Eiffel tower is waiting there for them, stately in the middle of a tiny square where it has no reason to be and shouldn't fit at all. But this is a dream. If she wants it to be there, why, there it is. The grand spire of the tower slowly curves till it's arched down to the ground, the space in between the beams webbing itself together, empty space and steel shifting slowly into wrinkled gray skin, and an elephant trumpets at them and ambles down the street.

"Don't think about elephants," Arthur murmurs, squeezing her hand. When she looks up at him he's smiling, those dimples showing again, and perhaps it's the logic of dreams that makes it seem perfectly natural to reach up with her free hand and draw him down for a kiss. He lets go of her other hand and Ariadne expects him to push her away, but then he has one hand on her waist and the other tangling in her hair and he's kissing her back like he's been waiting to do this for years.

When he pulls away, the world's gone soft and blurry around them, like they've stepped into a Monet. Not that she can see much beyond his face as he rests his forehead against hers. "Do you kiss all the girls you bring into a dream?" she asks.

"No. Just you," he says, lowering his face to hers. "Only you." Somewhere there is distant music. Ariadne feels like she's falling.


End file.
